I woke up after taking a nap once preparations were ready. My heart was pounding inside my chest as I walked to the entrance of the cave where my new party was waiting for me.
Just like the first time I ventured out the den, Tolio was there, this time with a short bow around his shoulder and some leather armor covering his chest and legs. He looked like the small and agile ranger type and I was hopeful about combat now that there was ranged support added in the mix.
The elder was just that, and ancient looking goblin that oozed an aura of wisdom from experience. His movements seemed fluid enough to not betray his old age too much, added to the simple robe that covered him it almost felt like having a wizard in the party.
To the elder’s left side was standing a taller goblin. The first thing I noticed was the fact that her nose was a lot smaller and slim, actually good looking. Her hips were wide and her breast noticeable but not eye catching. Most of her body was protected by old, but durable looking leather armor.
Next was another female covered in common clothing that were a bit too big for her. She was older and seemed tired, the dark around her eyes probably already a permanent feature on her face.
All in all, it seemed as if beauty was completely and utterly unbalanced towards the female of the goblin race. Both of them were as cute as males were ugly. I was sure the feeling of being cheated would linger for a while in my mind after noticing that both of them had nice black hair while the rest of us were hairless.
“We will have time for introductions and small talk later, we should leave soon.”
The elder said before any of us had a chance to speak, but his words were laced with enough urgency to make us nod and began our long journey.
--
The first few hours were spent simply walking in the general direction that Tolio pointed out for me, and as I was guiding the group, he was making sure to cover our trail.
Elder Zol was not in the best shape and both of the females were not very good at traveling stealthily across the forest. That made me have to think harder of the path to use, one easy enough for the old goblin and also easy enough for Tolio to hide any signs of our passing.
We didn’t stop when the sun came out, instead we pushed almost until noon. Mostly because the ranger and the elder said we could rest safely later.
“If we were trying to travel with pups, by this time no matter what we do they would be crying our ears off from the light or heat. There is no way for us to hide during the day like that.” Explained the elder to me, with Tolio and the old looking female nodding.
I don’t think we even bothered taking any guards, instead just sleeping a few hours and resuming our walk once more by midafternoon once the sun was a bit more bearable to our stronger eyes.
We marched most of the night too. The next day was the same with only a slightly slower rhythm as we felt more secure after having some distance between us and the old den.
Tolio helped us all to make some footwraps to make it both easier to walk and easier for him to erase our trail. After that we kept the fast pace for two more days until exhaustion was too much.
--
After we slept during the fourth day we relaxed our pace, finally getting a chance to actually talk. Something we would have done earlier if not for the exhaustion that crashed on us after rushing so far.
By Tolio calculations we were around seven days of normal travel away from the den, twice as needed to flee its influence and escape their scout's reach. Not that it was needed as Tolio was the last scout alive.
We settled next to a river and I decided to soak under the water while I watched the rest fumble in their attempts to bath, so that our smell didn’t give us away.
“How the fuck do you do it?” asked the elder’s granddaughter, her voice rough and not at all like the shrill voice of the males.
I sighed underwater before surfacing just enough so that my mouth was outside “It just feels nice to get cleaned.”
“No! It feels weird!”
“I am with her on this.” said Tolio, earning nods from the group “What you are doing is weird.”
“How can it be weird when it feels so good, Nyehehehe” I added while splashing a bit of water.
It was nice to finally have people to banter. Even if the past few days were totally exhausting, goblins had this ease among them to not care about stuff and simply talk, ask, or laugh about things.
But as refreshing as it was to be carefree, we were still not safe and if the constant alertness of both the elder and Tolio told me something was that this forest was dangerous.
“So where are we actually going?” Asked the elder female while playing with her feet inside the water.
“Zul, the kid, decided he was fed up from all the nonsense of Gortag and his fatties, so now we are settling on our own.” answered Tolio
“Ah, that explains why the old green bag was all smiles when he told me to get ready.”
The elder simply shrugged “I guess it is time for some introductions.” He pointed at the older female “That is Zia.” Then he pointed at his grandkid “That is my grandchild, Tika.”
After getting nods from everyone he continued “That one is called Tolio, he was a trainee hunter in the old den.” Then he pointed at me “The tall and lanky one is Zul. He is spirit-touched so be ready for weird stuff to happen.”
Once our group cleaned enough, except the elder as he simply didn’t smell like goblin, ever. We began at our now more sedated pace towards our new den which was not in the same direction that we were moving before. Tolio was a bit paranoid and wanted us to do our best to make Gortag and his goons unable to follow.
--
A few more days of walking and hunting, and we had already traveled together for nine days.
At first only Tolio was doing the hunting and gathering, but after he deemed it safe for us to try without risk of being followed everyone started chipping in.
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The girls were strong, once more showing off the goblinoid skewed genetics at its maximum. Our group strongest was Zia, followed by Tika, then me, Tolio and finally the elder Zol.
Agility was Tolio’s area of expertise with me following close behind. The rest was pretty much equal in that aspect.
I learned a bit more about goblin culture. In most traditional surface dens, females act as their chief, while in the more newly formed culture of underground dens, strong males rule. It was a big shift in traditions when the previous chief Mortag took over and changed everything everyone knew about.
Of course, goblins are too quick to adapt and soon only a few in the den remembered the old ways.
During our hunting it was obvious the girls enjoyed going for bigger, more feisty prey like boars and their even bigger half magical cousin the horned boar. It was just a big boar with three horns that were strong enough to fell trees. Scary fantasy stuff.
The elder surprised everyone by being the most consistent hunter, surpassing even Tolio. When I stalked around from afar, I saw him using his smoking pipe to make bird calls and snatching the unsuspecting prey when they got close.
Compared to all of them I was pretty much useless. I was capable of getting some stuff here and there, but nothing game changing.
The only time I felt actually useful was when we crossed path one night with a group of lizard-like creatures even smaller than goblins that the elder told me later were very distant cousins of some dragon cousin and were called Kobolds.
They tried to intimidate us with their dozen or so fighters armed with spears, until I stood as tall as I could, dwarfing them. The moment I unsheathed by sword-dagger, metal glinting under the moonlight, one of them shrieked and soon they were running away scared.
Everyone praised me, but to me it just felt weird. Being intimidating, while useful, grinded my human mentality harshly. The fact that the elder kept looking at me like a proud grandpa didn’t help at all.
--
On the twentieth day we could already see the valley, some hills and the mountains we were looking for, but decided against rushing our way there as Tolio spotted gray clouds rolling in.
That night I felt eternal gratitude to the hunter as our makeshift campsite shielded us from the worst of the storm.
We huddled together to shield off the cold and laughed a bit at how protective was the elder of his granddaughter as he placed her next to Zia in our goblin pile.
The next morning, I did something I probably should have done a lot sooner. I saw my face in the reflective surface of a big puddle right next to our camp.
My green skin, long ears and big nose were pretty much like any other goblin, but my blue eyes were a bit sunken giving me an intimidating face. The cherry on top were the scars, that even with my still perfectly smooth skin were discolored, the deeper the gash was, the lighter the skin tone.
“Most of your scars will heal overtime leaving no trace. Some deep ones will stay forever, like those two on your face.” added the elder, once again surprising me with how stealthy he was in his approach.
The scars he was talking about was the first one I got, the one the human warrior spear left on my left cheek. The second one was above my left eye, that one from Gortag’s punishment.
As we were getting ready for that morning’s walk, I wondered if I would ever see the day that watching my own smile didn’t make me shudder.
--
We advanced carefully across the forest towards the base of the mountains. At goblin speed it would take us around noon, but being careful we aimed towards later afternoon.
The forest was just as thick and wild as we were used, but there was a certain shift. It was more welcoming somehow, even if creatures were just as dangerous.
Seeing once more the two girls overpowering physically a horned boar all I could do was feel glad they were on my side. I also noted the lack of claws and teeth in the way they fought and hoped I remembered later to ask about that.
Right after noon I finally understood more or less why this part of the forest was feeling more habitable. The elder and the hunter had been picking fruits, berries and healing plants way more than before.
When I raised my question the elder was quick to answer “Very sharp. Yes, this area seems to be close to a settlement. Human or some other hybrid I think.” he said while checking the herbs once more.
Conversation died as we reached the entrance to the cave. A quick glance was enough to notice the signs of it being a mine for quite a few years.
“Bad. Not good, wait for me here.” Said Tolio right as he charged into the darkness making so little sound it was hard to believe he was moving.
“What is it gramps?” blurted Tika before I had a chance to do the same question.
“This is the place. I remember it being an unspoiled natural cave.”
A couple minutes of tense waiting, Tolio emerged looking serious.
Seeing as no one was taking action I asked first. “How bad is it?”
“Very. The place is still great for us, if not for the tunnels going too deep.”
“Dwarves?” Questioned the elder.
“Or dark elves, same shit in this case. Can not use this place anymore, whatever lives down there will use this to move to the surface.”
“It might take a while, couple weeks or so but we can find another one around.” Said the elder with Tolio nodding at him.
“Yeah, we do not have that much time!” Shouted Tika with her raspy voice, pointing at Zia’s stomach.
“Sorry, you said it was less than a month of travel so I believed we would get there in time.” Zia looked apologetic; her long ears cast down.
The elder sighed “I thought you had grown weaker over the years, but to think that you were pregnant is a surprise.” ‘That was weak?’ I thought, surprised.
“We are fucked. How long do we have?” Tolio cut in, probably sensing the elderly conversation to stale fast.
Zia answered by raising five fingers. Five days.
“Damn, I miss my pinkies.” I said raising one of my four fingered hands and managed to get at least some answers in the form a snort and some chuckles. “So, we need a place fast. Elder, ideas?”
“Ask around?” He deadpanned, which made Tolio angry once more.
While the group argued about directions, I chipped whatever I could to help, but there was little hope to find a proper place. It seemed as we would have to make do with some temporary camp.
“Can we not just ask the humans for directions?” the small question gave pause to the arguing. The fact that it was the elder granddaughter was a bit of a surprise as she usually kept to herself when conversations were serious. “I mean, did you not talk to them already?”
“I guess I did? Wait, how do you know that?”
“I was living in the same cave with you and gramps, dumbo.” Oh, right. Well, that was embarrassing. Where else would the elder be keeping her hidden.
“Could work, but you need to be able to talk or write better. Maybe something sneakier could work...” The elder mused, as if that was already the plan.
“Oh right, I have this.” Remembering I was piling loot in my backpack I took out the letter the human warrior had inside his armor and handed it to the elder.
As he read it, he went from surprise, to frowning to curiosity in the span of a minute. It was a short letter after all.
“There was a request to some guild.” Tika asked what a guild was and after a short explanation the elder resumed “The request was to investigate if there was a goblin den in the area and to cull it if needed. It said that anything under the two hundred was okay to be left alone. There was also a secondary objective of knowing if it had a male or female chief.”
As the elder explained to the group what less than two hundred meant I pondered, surprised at its contents. I might have misjudged the mage girl, she probably was telling him there was no need to kill anyone at all, especially the babies.
We were less than a hundred at that point and after they invaded us, half of that remained.
What was more intriguing was the fact they wanted to know if it was a male or female leader. Are they looking for goblin dens willing to talk, and if so, just what they want from goblins anyway? Soldiers of some kind was my only guess, but why go so far as to cull bigger nest if so?
“You are curious too, chief?” the elder took me out of my musings. I nodded, he continued. “Maybe we have a chance. I will teach what little I know of human customs and their tongue.”
“Then I will search for settlements, let us hope they are human.” The hunter was not convinced if his tone was something to go by, but without any other plan besides walking aimlessly until they found a good cave or spot it was better than nothing.
“Me too.” Said Tika and left with Tolio before the elder manage to protest. Both me and Zia stayed behind learning the human language and laughing at the old goblin grouching at how reckless his grandkid was.